


Waking to the Blank Canvas

by PixChuu22



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Retcon Timeline, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:56:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixChuu22/pseuds/PixChuu22
Summary: A retcon in regards to most of s3 and all of s4.Sherlock Holmes wakes from a drug-induced coma in hospital to find John Watson waiting at his bedside, questioning what they're going to do now to sort out out the problem of "Mary" and Magnussen.Originally a ficlet that refused to sit quietly. Updating as often as I can manage, but I can't promise any sort of schedule.The title is from Chasers of Light by Tyler Knott Greyson: "I am so tired of waking to the blank canvas of morning and knowing it won't be painted with you."





	1. Chapter 1

The grey prison room was full of music, violins not dueling like plebeian banjos but soaring together, blending and twisting into something ephemeral and shining. Sherlock Holmes and his sister, playing together, making something beautiful…

So why, then, was the music fading? There was a sound interrupting, a repetitive, familiarly obnoxious beeping was rising over the music, overtaking it and drowning it until there was nothing but a steady _beep…beep…beep…_

The regular intervals of the beeps reminded him of something, but he felt muzzy and unfocused. The music was gone and now even Eurus was fading away, the grey of her prison cell walls hazing into white like a magic trick.

A soft, almost imperceptible susurration joined the beeping, broken intermittently with a comfortingly familiar snore.

_Beep…beep…beep…_

He knew that sound.

_Beep…beep…beep…_

A heart monitor, a common item in most hospitals. But who was in the hospital?

Eurus was gone, as was the glass front of the prison cell, disappearing as effortlessly as it had done just hours before. The prison walls were white, not grey. From somewhere nearby, a loudspeaker page murmured for Dr. Choudry to report to the ICU, Dr. Choudry to the ICU.

The heart monitor’s beeping was speeding, the beeps coming closer together as Sherlock watched the prison walls melting away around him into different institutional walls. The susurration was louder now, broken at semi-regular intervals with the familiar, snorting snores.

Sherlock opened his eyes wide, becoming suddenly aware of his own body lying prone in the uncomfortable support of a hospital bed, the starchy sheets drawn up just below his sternum. The uncomfortably subtle tug of medical tape on the skin of his chest accompanied him drawing in a sharp breath, the gasp complemented by the rapid beeping of the heart monitor that was charting his own racing pulses. He groaned that deep breath out softly at the bright pain that throbbed through his chest at his inhalation, and the snoring ended with a sudden, sharp snort.

Beside the bed, John Watson pushed himself up in the chair he’d been dozing in, rubbing one hand over his eyes and cheeks, his dry palms scraping softly over his stubble. The dryness of his palms was echoed by the red chapping on the backs of his hands and his lips, almost certainly due to the sterile, dehydrated hospital air that he’d been sitting in for at least five days without pause, judging by the rumpling of his shirt and the growth of his beard.

John’s eyes focused suddenly and he shoved halfway up from the chair, his body taut, hands clenching on the arms of the chair so hard that Sherlock heard the wood beneath the vinyl padding give a quiet, protesting groan.

“Sherlock?” John stared a moment, expression hopeful and expectant as his eyes locked on Sherlock’s. When Sherlock didn’t reply, though, he began to sink slowly back into the chair, his lined face falling in disappointment.

“John.” The word was the barest rumble, almost subaudible, but John leapt from the chair, tripping over his own feet and stumbling into the side of Sherlock’s hospital bed with a bruising clatter that he seemed completely unaware of, his hands locking around the railing in front of him so tightly that his knuckles blanched white.

“You’re awake? You’re truly awake this time?”

“Yes.” That was a little better, but still barely more than a whisper. Sherlock tried to clear his throat, but both his throat and mouth seemed lined with cotton wool. Swallowing brought forth a clicking sound from the back of his throat and offered no relief.

“I’ve been sitting here for days, monitoring everything they put in your IV. The nurses loathe me." A brief smile ticked up one corner of his mouth before slipping away as John refocused on Sherlock. "You’ve been out for nearly two months, Sherlock. I was afraid…I thought maybe you were being kept asleep, because you’ve been healing so well and your vitals seemed stable, other than your inability to wake up. I think now, seeing you like this... maybe I was right.”

The brief fury that swept over John’s face was not directed at Sherlock, but it still sent a shiver through him. Why? Something…a fight? Had they had a fight? No, that had been a dream. So many dreams, blending into one another and frequently disagreeing with each other… how long had he been sleeping? His chest still hurt from the bullet “Mary,” John’s wife, had fired into him, but not nearly as badly as it had in those first hours. John had said "for nearly two months," and while he was still tender, it was something he felt sure he could work around. And it was becoming obvious that he  _would_  need to work around it; nothing was solved. Mary was still at large, a threat to everyone. 

“Anyway, you’re awake now.” The anger twisted into a sharp smile, John’s nostrils flaring as his dark blue eyes focused on Sherlock’s face with harsh intensity. “It’s time to plan, Sherlock. I’ve played along with what you said to do, pretended to trust Mary after she shot you. I’ve been bloody brilliant, if I don’t say so myself, while I waited for you to wake up. Well, you’re awake. So, what do we do now?”


	2. Chapter 2

The stairs up to 221B Baker Street were not difficult to climb after two weeks of physical therapy meant to help him regain full use of his body after two months of lying flat on his back, but Sherlock was faintly amused at the way John hovered just behind him on the stairs, his hands slightly raised  with palms up as though expecting at any moment to need to catch Sherlock when he tumbled over backwards from the strain of stepping up a flight of stairs.

Sherlock pushed the unlocked door open and stepped through quickly, a desire to verify that all was as it should be propelling him into the room so fast that he nearly stumbled over his own feet. He surveyed the flat, eyes skidding across the familiar jumble of furniture and collected flotsam. It looked as it always had. Sherlock felt a little niggling worry at the back of his mind pressing at him, insisting that something wasn’t right, and he cast a quick glance over his right shoulder at the painting he’d hung prominently just to one side of the couch. It was an off-white skull, grinning against a blue background. For a moment, he’d remembered a different painting hanging there, a painting of a similar skull but not Mr. Blue Skull, as he’d dubbed this painting. But, no… the painting of Mr. Blue Skull was as it should be, no imposter hanging in its place.

Everything was the same as it had been when he had left it several months before in an ambulance after he had played host to the domestic between John and his murderous wife, Mary, only a day after being shot by Mary herself.

The memory had Sherlock raising one hand to hover over his shirt front, fingertips brushing the starched material but not actually depressing it. His gunshot wound was healing, but the skin was still tender, the edges puckering into a pink scar while the center remained scabbed and sensitive. He avoided putting pressure on or near it whenever possible, but thinking of Mary always made him want to cover that spot. A pointless gesture; he could not prevent the bullet from tearing through him the first time and, were she to shoot him again now, a raised hand wouldn’t even slow a bullet.

John was watching him with obvious concern on his weathered face, his dark blue eyes ticking from the spot Sherlock’s hand protectively covered and back up to Sherlock’s face, trying to read the man’s expression for some clue as to his feelings. He obviously came to the correct conclusion because he cleared his throat and shuffled a couple of steps away from Sherlock, casting his eyes down to a humped up spot in the patterned rug covering the hardwood floor, staring at it with such focus that it almost seemed he expected it to have answers for him to some secret question known only by John and the rug.

“I may have accidentally let Mary know you were coming home today.”

Sherlock suppressed a frustrated groan, dropping his hand and turning to stare at John. “While I know you are not the most talented liar, perhaps this one time you could have tried –”

“I didn’t even get a chance to lie. She didn’t… I mean, I just blurted it out.” There was a pause and then John spoke again, the words muttered quickly as though he wanted to conceal them. “I was excited. I lost my head.”

Sherlock blinked, bemused. How could he keep his annoyance alive with _that_ confession in front of him? It was definitely unlucky that Mary was aware he was out of hospital, but it was too late to do anything about it now. They had to stick to the plan of feigning trust in Mary, the best he’d been able to throw together over the last two weeks in those brief moments he’d been able to steal with the two of them alone – Mary haunted them like a revenant spirit now, trailing behind John and watching Sherlock suspiciously at all times. They’d had no time alone to plan. When John left his home, Mary left with him. If he tried to steal a moment to himself, Mary would come to the hospital by herself, frequently sitting beside Sherlock’s bedside and pretending to watch telly with him in a cold, watchful silence that would continue until either John texted her to see where she’d gone off to or until John appeared to chat briefly with Sherlock, Mary’s eyes always on them. She had never repeated the threats she’d made the first night he’d been in hospital, still off his tits on the medicine the surgeons had pumped into him while trying to dig Mary’s bullet out of his chest and save his life. But then, she hadn’t really spoken to him at all except for basic pleasantries when John was around. She seemed content to wait and watch.

“I suppose that means she’ll be here soon?” Sherlock asked, stepping into the flat and lowering himself carefully into the comfortable, overlarge leather chair that he had claimed as his from the first moment he’d stepped into the flat Mrs. Hudson had furnished to let. Across from it was a red cloth upholstered, squat armchair, a small pillow with a Union Jack cross-stitched onto it tossed negligently onto the seat. John followed after Sherlock, dropping into the upholstered chair, his dark blue eyes focusing unblinkingly on Sherlock as his rubbed his palms over the ends of the chair arms over and over, unable to hide his nervousness. Despite John’s nerves, though, Sherlock could feel himself relaxing slightly, sinking into the support of his chair. This was just as it should be, the two of them sitting companionably across from one another. This familiarity and the flat being as he remembered it did more towards healing the pain inside of him than any amount of medication, and he cast his mind briefly towards the idea that the pain was not actually physical, not due to the bullet tearing through him but something other, something else.

John cleared his throat again softly, leaning forward a little in the armchair, hands tightening and stilling on the armrests. “I was able to fudge the details a little…saying I wasn’t sure when you’d be released but that I was going to show up at hospital around lunchtime. I doubt she fully bought it; she’s been checking in on me every twenty minutes. Can’t tell you how much the patients have enjoyed having a nurse popping in without warning all morning.” John cast Sherlock a faint grin and Sherlock reciprocated, imagining John becoming increasingly frustrated at the constant interruptions. “I managed to pass my final patient before lunch off to another GP by claiming stomach problems. Funny how no one digs too deeply if you tell them you’re feeling a bit off and might need a toilet immediately. I figure we’ve got about ten more minutes before she’ll be here.”

“That should be enough.” Sherlock rested his elbows on the armrests, steepling his fingers beneath his chin as he regarded John across the room. “I told you to trust Mary, that she’d saved my life –”

“By shooting you,” John interjected, his voice strained.

Sherlock pressed his lips together on what he wanted to say, pushing back his annoyance at the need to rehash this conversation yet again. It wasted time that could be better spent on planning how to move forward now that he was out of hospital and awake…and they _did_ need to plan how to move forward. Mary was a dangerous part of the equation of their lives, undoubtedly tangled somehow in the web that Moriarty had left behind with his passing…

_The TV across the room switched on, a still frame of Moriarty’s face, his mouth moving like a ventriloquist’s dummy, repeating teasingly, “Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?”_

Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath, body going taut as panic swept through him, stealing away everything but the desire to run. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw John lean forward even more, chest nearly on his thighs now, hands braced on the arms of his chair as his brows drew together. “Sherlock?”

The screen was black. There was no longer anything there. Had there been anything there to begin with?

“The…the telly. It just…”

John turned, glancing over his shoulder towards the black screen before turning back to Sherlock. The concern on his face had not faded. If anything, it had doubled after his quick survey of the blank screen.

“I thought I saw… Moriarty.”

John’s eyes widened slightly and he turned again, glancing back at the telly to verify that it was, indeed, off. He returned his confused gaze to Sherlock, and Sherlock shook his head faintly, drawing his eyes from the blank screen and refocusing on John’s face.

“I don’t know. For a moment, I saw his face…it seemed so real. But, at the same moment, it felt like a memory. I think…I think it was something I dreamed while I was under.”

“Ah.” The confusion on John’s face cleared and he rose to his feet, stepping close to Sherlock’s chair to lift his arm, the movement matter of fact. Dr. Watson slid his hand around Sherlock’s wrist, his warm fingers perfunctory as he checked the other man’s pulse, his eyes locked to his wristwatch on his opposite wrist. He released Sherlock’s arm after a few moments, one finger dropping beneath Sherlock’s chin and lifting his head slightly so that John could peer thoughtfully into Sherlock’s eyes before dropping his hand from Sherlock’s chin and giving his head a minute shake. “It’s possible that the drugs are still working their way out of your system. We’ve no way of knowing what sort of things they might have given you and how they interacted within your body and with one another. It’s possible you’ll experience flashbacks from time to time to things your brain dreamed up while you were drugged…as long as it’s nothing _lasting_ , right? You’ll tell me if you think you see something else unusual?”

“Of course.” Sherlock shook off his internal discomfort by shaking down the cuffs of his sleeves in a practiced, almost theatrical movement, resettling them where they should be. Sherlock did not miss the faint pinch at the corners of John’s eyes, though; John was still worried.

John stepped back slightly from Sherlock’s chair to stand in front of the cold fireplace, crossing his arms over his chest but not before Sherlock saw him flexing his left hand, something Sherlock had come to associate with John feeling strong negative emotions. He braced himself for whatever John was about to say, his entire body tightening as he pressed himself slightly back into the leather of his armchair. “Sherlock –”

Whatever John had been about to say, however, was lost; there was a soft tap at the sitting room door before it was pushed open, revealing Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, an apologetic smile on her face.

“Ooo hoo,” she trilled as the door opened fully. “You have a visitor.” There was a very faint tremor beneath the words and Sherlock twisted in his chair, his tension ratcheting up even higher as he realized who must be behind his landlady.

Mary Watson stepped around Mrs. Hudson, a pleasant expression on her face. The expression was only skin, deep, though; it did not reach her eyes. Those were scanning across John and Sherlock’s faces in quick precision, reading them for clues. Sherlock knew what she was looking for: had he explained the truth of the matter to John? Was John still operating under the belief that her murder attempt was actually ‘surgery’?

Whatever she saw in their faces seemed to reassure her. Her pleasant expression softened slightly into a smile and she stepped close to John, not audacious enough to put an arm through his when he was still so obviously unhappy with her but confident enough to claim him by placing herself closer to him than Sherlock was. It was subtle, but obvious enough that Sherlock could not fail to miss it. Mary was reminding him to whom John Watson was married, to whom his loyalties would surely lie if things all fell apart in the next few day or weeks. She still believed she owned him. The tightness Sherlock felt around his mouth did not feel like a smile, and he fought to make it more believably friendly as he met Mary’s eyes directly.

“John told me you’d be getting out of hospital today, although he wasn’t clear on when.” Mary’s eyes cut sharply to her side, spearing John. Sherlock spoke quickly, drawing her cool gaze off of John and back to himself.

“Not his fault. My doctor was quite unclear on when, exactly, I would be getting my pardon from the prison cell of my hospital bed. I phoned him as soon as I was given the all clear and urged him to get me out of there as quickly as he could. It was my fault John disappeared so suddenly, I’m afraid.” Sherlock pulled a completely fake smile onto his lips, trying to force his body into a position of relaxed indifference in his chair, holding tight to his control to prevent himself from rapidly twitching a foot or tapping a finger on the arm of his chair in the wash of adrenaline that Mary’s appearance had dumped into his body.

_Mary’s face stretched into a laugh, her eyes twinkling at him as she gave in to her exasperated amusement. “The mathematics of probability?” she said, her voice fond and full of laughter._

Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes refocusing on Mary where she stood beside John. The brief flash of memory from dream-Mary looked nothing at all like the lizard-eyed creature that stood before him now. She tipped her head slightly to one side as she surveyed him, taking in his panting breaths and slack features with a kind of mechanical curiosity. He could almost hear the click-clunk of gears in her head processing his emotional reactions to his own thoughts. How foolish of him to think that beneath this icy exterior lay a gentle human. His dreams revealed more of his wishful desire for a simpler world than he could presently face, and he shuddered faintly as he pushed away the memory of his dream.

“Sherlock?” The word was soft, but Sherlock could hear the mounting concern in John’s voice. He obviously wasn’t the only one, because Mary glanced at John for a moment and then looked back to Sherlock, her regard sharpening as she stared at him. She could tell something wasn’t quite right, but she had no idea what it might be.

“No, just…still reacting to the medication from my overlong visit to hospital.” Sherlock forced what he was sure was a shaky and unconvincing smile back onto his features, feeling the weight of both Mary and John’s regard upon him, pressing him into his chair with concern and curiosity. He suddenly wanted nothing so much as to get away, escape from the heaviness of the false memories that kept shoving themselves into his mind and distracting him from the very real problem of Mary Watson.

“You ought to have a word with your doctor,” Mary suggested, her tone wry but unconcerned for whatever he was experiencing. “If you’re reacting to a medication, you might need to go back into hospital for a while.”

There was a threat somewhere under those words. Sherlock could feel them like the softest nudge at the animal part of his brain, a whisper of ‘danger here’ despite Mary’s calm voice and pleasant expression.

“No. I’m…it will pass.” Sherlock stood with a bit more flourish than absolutely necessary, shaking his cuffs down despite the fact that they were already where they ought to be. It was as good as excuse as any for him to step away from John and Mary, crossing the room in several quick steps before spinning on the ball of one foot to face them again. “Anyway, we have larger problems to focus on right now. Mary, we have to get your information away from Magnussen. He cannot be allowed to keep it; it puts you, and by association, John, in too much danger. I will not allow him to have power over you.”

“That’s very kind of you, Sherlock, but how on earth are you going to get the information away from him? I demanded it at gunpoint and he wouldn’t give it up.” Mary looked more relaxed now that the conversation had turned to protecting her from outside forces, and Sherlock relaxed in response; Mary not glaring at him or John was much preferred to the alternative.

“I’ll have to think on that,” Sherlock said, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, a coping mechanism he had adopted many years before to cover his hands when the desire to twiddle his fingers with nervousness was overwhelming. He tried not to do it much anymore; it ruined the line of his trousers, and appearances were important, especially when you were an oddity in the world. Still, ruining the lines of his pants right now was preferable to letting Mary see his fingers twitching and twiddling with nerves. He needed Mary to leave. Unfortunately, that also meant John had to leave…but, perhaps, at this juncture, it was safer for John to be away from him. Mary would not risk her ownership of John if Sherlock was not needling her with reminders that she might lose him. With that in mind, he leaned back onto his heels for a moment, sighing out a breath. “Don’t worry about a thing. I have every confidence that this can be resolved satisfactorily – I’ll be in touch.”

“Oh.” The word came out on a soft, surprised exhalation and John glanced between Sherlock and Mary for a moment before straightening up into a pose reminiscent of parade rest. He held it for a moment before leaning out to retrieve his jacket from where it was draped over the back of his armchair, nodding slightly towards Sherlock. “Yes. Right. Of course. I have more patients this afternoon that need seeing to.”

“Yes, you do. I know they would miss you if you suddenly weren’t there.” Mary’s voice was tart, and while she spoke to John, her eyes were on Sherlock. Sherlock could not stop himself from flinching slightly in response to the not-very-veiled threat. John seemed to’ve missed it, though, his eyes sending silent questions at Sherlock. He could not answer any of them at that moment, though. Not with Mary there.

Sherlock did not like watching John walk away with a trained assassin when said assassin was cross with him. However, there was nothing he could do at that moment that would not increase the risk to John.

Sherlock watched the pair of them leave, seeing more in the tense set of John’s shoulders and the almost painful straightness of John’s back than he wanted to see. How were they to deal with Mary Watson? Sherlock turned away from the sitting room door to lower himself onto the couch, cautious of the twinge of pain from his gunshot wound, settling his long, lean frame comfortably into the cushions beneath him as he lay prone. He needed to think.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock had once compared Charles Magnussen to a shark; he was finding now that “Mary” was a snake. As the days passed and he learned what to expect from a Mary with her pleasant mask stripped away, he found that she did not blink or break her focus on him, no matter what he tried to do.

His few stolen moments alone with John felt as risky as invading a snake's nest to steal away an egg, and the threat was almost the same as if he were: should the snake find you with its property, it would certainly try to kill you.

So, it was an immense surprise when, a week after Sherlock returned home from hospital, John stepped into the sitting room of 221B without Mary trailing after him.

Sherlock had been distracting himself with composing a new melody on his violin, although he was doing a rather poor job of it. The composition had an edge to it that was both melancholy and frustrated, which was not at all what he'd intended when he'd first started composing that morning.

Sherlock lowered both violin and bow, holding them with one hand as he lifted a pencil to mark a change in the notes on the sheet music before him with his other hand, and, in the sudden silence, heard a familiar tread on the stairs coming up to 221B. He turned away from the music stand as the sitting room door opened to reveal John, who was looking uncommonly pleased.

“That was pretty,” John said, stepping into the flat and clasping his hands behind the small of his back as he stared across the room at Sherlock. “I haven't heard that one before.”

“New composition,” Sherlock murmured, eyebrows drawing down slightly as he scanned John’s clothes and face. John had obviously been at work: the scent of rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer was impossible for even the least observant person to miss. Besides, it was only half-two in the afternoon on a weekday; it hardly took any deductive skills at all to know where a practising GP would be. “You aren't at work.”

“Good deduction.” John smirked for a second before clearing his throat and stepping further into the sitting room. “I've been sacked.” John's face lit up in a smile at the admission and Sherlock blinked, startled.

“You’ve been…”

“Sacked. I’d been messing up on my files a bit over the last couple of months owing to how distracted I’ve been with…everything. And then I took a week off of work because I needed to sit by your side round the clock; didn’t trust anyone else to do it.”

Sherlock felt a little pleasant jolt shoot through his belly at John’s words and he turned slightly, placing his violin and bow down carefully on the sitting room work table that was shoved against the wall between the two floor-to-ceiling windows. He dropped the pencil down beside them, giving his hands a little shake to ease the lingering tension from playing all morning.

“What did Mary say about it?”

“Haven’t told her.” There was no mistaking the amusement in John’s voice or the faint smile ticking up one corner of his mouth, and Sherlock let his own enjoyment of the situation lift his lips for a moment before turning away from John to push open the filmy curtain to look out the window nearest him, surveying the foot traffic on the street outside.

“She’ll learn about it soon enough. It’s unavoidable; you share a work place. We have to talk while there’s time.” Sherlock let the curtain fall shut but continued to look through the window, the thin fabric giving the world outside a misty, unreal look. “We are both aware of how dangerous she is when cornered, and therefore the shaky plan I gave you three months ago is _still_ the best we have: trust her. Or, at least, pretend to trust her. We must give every indication that we believe that she is on our side as long as _we_ are on _her_ side. To do otherwise would invite assassination.” Sherlock turned from the window for a moment, spearing John with a hard look, holding the other man’s eyes with unblinking intensity. “Do not forget for a moment, John, that she is dangerous. She is not your sweet wife. She is not redeemable. She attempted to kill me and the only thing keeping her from repeating the attempt is the idea that you and I believe she is ultimately on our side. However, she is _not_ on our side, John. She will never be a part of the team, running along on adventures with us. The woman who has lied to you from the very moment you met her is not truly your wife.”

The amusement was gone from John’s face. Instead, he looked grim but determined. He nodded once in acknowledgement of Sherlock’s words, his face set. But his hands hung relaxed at his sides and there was no tremor evident in his left hand, a tell Sherlock had come to rely upon to indicate John’s level of emotional stress. While the idea that “Mary” was dangerous was not a happy one, it did not thrust John into emotional distress to face it.

Sherlock turned back to the window, staring through the haze of the see-through curtain to the street below, scanning the pedestrian traffic and the slow creep of vehicles on the road. “I worry we’ll need to engage Mycroft in this. He’s been breathing down my neck since I came out of my coma to give him the name of who shot me. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’d made similar demands of Magnussen, although with more tact than he would give me. He won’t quit until he gets an answer he can pursue. He likes to pretend to be high-minded, but Mycroft has never been above petty revenge.”

“We can’t just hand her over to the British government, though,” John protested, stepping closer to Sherlock. “She’s pregnant. With _my_ baby.”

Sherlock drew in a slow breath, hesitating over his next words. Finally, though, he sighed, his exhalation causing the curtain before him to shiver lightly, sending undulations through the world Sherlock saw through it. “John, have you ever actually been with her for a scan? Have you taken her to a doctor yourself and had the pregnancy confirmed, or is it all based on her say-so?”

The silence was heavy and oppressive and Sherlock’s back tightened up in sympathy for the realizations that were certainly dawning for the first time in John’s thoughts.

When John spoke, the words were slow and heavy with his realization and sudden loss. “I...haven’t.”

“Have you noticed any of the typical physical signs of pregnancy? Not things that can be faked like nausea or increased appetite; have you observed changes in her abdomen?”

“We haven’t really been in a place to be intimate, Sherlock.” John’s words now were vicious, and Sherlock pressed his lips together and shook his head slightly, knowing that it wasn’t truly anger at him that colored John’s voice. “And she’s been well covered most of the time. It’s _winter_ , in case it’s slipped your awareness.”

Sherlock said nothing, letting John have his anger. Finally, John sighed heavily. He paced across the room, his footfalls heavy. They did not sound like the steps of a furious man, though; they dragged as if he had too much weight pressing him down to step properly.

John dropped into his armchair with a thump and a protesting squeak of the springs, and Sherlock turned to look at the other man, taking in the slump of his shoulders and the way his head hung heavy before him. Sherlock furrowed his brow in sympathy but did not move from the window. John would not appreciate his comfort at that moment, he felt sure.

“She could be faking it. She could easily be faking it.” John raised both hands, scrubbing them over his face rapidly before looking up at Sherlock, his skin pinking slightly from the rough handling. “Do I take her for a scan, call her out on the lie?”

“No.” Sherlock glanced back out the window, eyes skimming the street. A cab was approaching, slowing as it neared 221. “As I said, we must give every indication that we still trust her. Play along with the fantasy she wants us to believe: she is pregnant and she is only seeking a way to get out from under Magnussen’s thumb to continue her new life as a quiet British wife.”

The cab stopped and Mary stepped out on the asphalt below almost before its tyres stopped turning. Sherlock turned from the window, catching John’s eye and speaking rapidly.

“It’s important that we keep her unbalanced at all times. I will contact Mycroft but you need to pretend to be angry with me. You cannot seem to be _too_ close to me, because she will take that as a threat to her continued safety. So start shouting.”

“What?” John looked nonplussed, leaning back into his chair slightly as he stared up at Sherlock.

“Start yelling at me.” The words were hissed in a whisper; below, the doorbell chimed and Sherlock heard Mrs. Hudson calling out as she hurried to answer it. Understanding slowly blossomed on John’s face.

“What about?” John asked, his eyes darting towards the sitting room door.

“Your job will work.”

“And now I’ve been sacked!” John shouted, imbuing enough anger in his voice that Sherlock felt it would be believable.

“And what’s that to do with me?” Sherlock shouted back, turning away from John to pretend to stare out the window once more. In his chest, his heart was positively thrumming with stress. He could not relax around Mary, and knowing that she would be in the same room as him in just a few seconds had lit the fire under his fight or flight response.

“It’s everything to do with you! It’s because of you that I missed so much work!”

“That was your choice. I didn’t beg you to sit beside me. I was unconscious!”

The sitting room door opened and Mary scanned them quickly, tick-tick, before a faint smile touched her lips. “John. You okay?”

“No, I’m _not_ okay! I’ve just been sacked because of this useless…stupid…”

John was floundering. Sherlock stepped forward, forcing the boiling tension in his body into his voice as he shouted, “Stop describing yourself and get out of my flat! If I’m the cause of all your misfortune, perhaps you shouldn’t be here! _Leave_!”

John’s eyes widened briefly, pain sweeping across his face as he stared up at Sherlock from where he sat in his armchair. Then, he shoved himself up in one sharply violent move, beginning to turn towards Mary at the sitting room door.

_“Wake up!” John shouted, uncontrolled fury filling the words. “Is this a game? A bloody game?”_

_The blows rained fast and jarring, John’s fist ringing his bell so effectively that he dropped to the linoleum below him, blood dribbling from his nose and mouth to pool between his bracing hands. But John wasn’t done yet; his foot shot out, the sharp-edged toe of his dress shoe digging shockingly hard into Sherlock’s ribs. It swung forward again, catching him in the stomach this time, knocking the air out of him with a harsh huff, the physical pain of the blows mingling with the emotional pain of his friend’s betrayal. John was out of control. John blamed him._

Sherlock reeled back, stumbling over one of the chairs at the table behind him and crashing into the wall, one flailing arm tangling with the curtains and hampering his fall to the floor somewhat. He ended up kneeling, one arm twisted slightly behind him and over his head where the curtain held it, his hip aching from where it had met the resisting edge of the wooden chair frame. The gunshot wound in his chest was also throbbing dully, jarred by the impact of his back with the wall.

Across the room, John was already spinning to return to him, his concern unmistakable on his face. Mary watched John with coolly assessing eyes, taking in the instantaneous switch from fury to concern. Sherlock wanted to send John away with a few harsh words, a reminder of the roles they absolutely _had_ to play right then to keep Mary off balance, but he couldn’t even muster the wherewithal to slow his own panicked, stertorous breathing.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, what happened? What is it?” John was moving as he spoke, untangling Sherlock’s arm from the curtain and lowering it gently to Sherlock’s side, fingers sliding down Sherlock’s forearm to take his pulse. His brow furrowed at what he felt and he glanced at Sherlock’s expression. The concern did not fade from his face, so Sherlock knew that his own face was not hiding the horror he felt from the memory of his drugged dream.

The John in his dream had been beyond furious, nothing at all like the man standing before him. He knew John had depths of anger in him; he’d seen them from the very first moment they’d met. He was a veteran of war, after all, and that experience left a mark on a person’s soul. But the John in his dream had been far beyond the simmering anger of the John Watson he had known for the last few years. The John in his dream had been boiling over with rage, striking out at the ones he cared for most. It had been a nightmare version of John that bore very little resemblance to the man Sherlock knew, out of control and unpredictable in his misguided blind fury.

“We should take him back to hospital,” Mary suggested, and John glanced over at her, his mouth twisting into a deeper frown. He glanced at Sherlock again, then nodded.

“Yeah, I think we probably should.”

“I’m fine.” The words came out on a wheeze, his voice thin and powerless, but at least Sherlock had managed to speak. “I’m all right. It was just…a bad memory.”

“A real memory?” John prodded.

“A memory of a dream,” Sherlock clarified, carefully withdrawing his arm from John’s grip and leaving his wrist colder without the touch of John’s fingers on it. John glanced down, startled, as if he’d forgotten he was still holding on to Sherlock’s wrist. But then John’s mouth tightened back down as he shook off his mild surprise and focused again on his patient.

“Your heart is beating faster than I’m comfortable with. Your pupils are far too contracted. This doesn’t seem like a normal reaction to a bad memory, Sherlock. I genuinely think it would be good for you to go back to hospital for a day or two more –”

“I’m not going back.” Sherlock moved to stand and John was forced to step back and give him the space necessary to rise. Sherlock avoided eye contact with John for a moment, brushing at his clothes absently to give his hands something to do and hide the slight tremble in them. “I’m fine.”

“Always the storyteller.” Mary’s voice held a hint of amusement in it, and Sherlock glanced up, meeting her eyes for just a moment. There was nothing there: no contempt, no concern, and no interest in his reactions. It was like looking into the flat eyes of a painting done by a not-terribly-talented artist. The lines and colors were right, but it was two-dimensional and unreal. “Always focused on the fairytale he’s telling.”

The words reminded him suddenly and sharply of Moriarty. He, also, had always spoken of fairytales and storytellers. Had John mentioned that to her in the years Sherlock had been away? And now she was digging it up from the dim recesses of her mind to taunt him.

And that told Sherlock all he needed to know about Mary. Perhaps she had once been something like a friend. Perhaps she had played along with John and Sherlock when it suited her. Those days were over. “Mary” was done participating in their little games.

“Come on, John; he should rest,” she said, opening the sitting room door wide and waiting for John with one hand on the handle, her eyes still on Sherlock. Her gaze remained reptilian, assessing, and frightening. The tremble in his hands no longer had anything to do with the memory of his drug-induced dreams.

John cast one more look at Sherlock, lips pinched tight and brow furrowed as he took in the continued stressors Sherlock couldn’t hide, and then rose to join Mary across the sitting room. Sherlock fought with himself to call John back and prevent him leaving the safety of the flat with such an obvious danger. Logically, he knew Mary wouldn’t harm John; she’d shown herself to be particularly covetous of him and would not risk him as long as she believed she owned him. And she still needed their help to save herself from Magnussen. Logic, however, did not stop the fear rising in Sherlock’s chest as he watched John leave with “Mary,” and the sound of the door downstairs closing the pair of them out of 221 Baker Street brought a sudden, sharp prickle of tears to his eyes. He blinked them away, drawing a deep breath before going to lift his mobile from an arm of the sofa where it had been left after it was plugged in to charge. He needed to talk to Mycroft.


	4. Chapter 4

“I had suspected she might have been your shooter.” The defeat in Mycroft’s voice was evident, and Sherlock fought back a surge of anger as he realized what the words and tone mean when taken together: Mycroft had known what “Mary” was long before Sherlock himself realized it and, worse, Mycroft had chosen never to mention that knowledge to Sherlock.

“How long?” Sherlock’s words were clipped, and he addressed them down towards the violin bow he was absently rosining. They were sat across from one another in the armchairs in the sitting room of 221B before the cold, empty hearth, the late afternoon light filtering through the windows to give the room a hazy reddish glow. It had only been an hour since John had left with “Mary,” and tension still hummed in Sherlock’s body. Mycroft’s words had ratcheted it back up once more. “How long have you suspected that ‘Mary’ was not what she presented herself as?”

“Since before you returned to London, brother mine.” The defeat was gone from his voice now, and Mycroft lifted his imperious chin slightly, staring down his beaky nose at his younger brother. “I saw her with John not long after she had successfully hunted him down, after all. As I said before, I kept a weather eye on the situation.”

“And you never thought to intervene?” Sherlock glared with rising fury at his older brother. He lowered the bow and rosin to his lap, the better to prevent damaging something. How like Mycroft to keep close to his chest information that Sherlock needed. Had he enjoyed watching Sherlock fumble around for the past year? “If _that_ why you didn’t come to the wedding?”

Mycroft’s smile was humorless, a twisting of his lips that did not reach his eyes. “There were many reasons I chose not attend.”

“You left John to tie himself to that…that…” Words had failed him in the reality of his brother’s betrayal of John and, by association, Sherlock.

“It was out of my hands, Sherlock. There are machinations behind the scenes that you cannot possibly understand, and they made my warning John of the danger at hand impossible. Besides, she has made it clear that she has no desire to harm Dr. Watson, as long as he belongs to her. It seemed prudent to leave her be until such a time as intervention became an unavoidable necessity.”

“And now that she’s put a bullet in me?” Sherlock asked, the words sharp. “Is intervention a necessity _now_?”

Mycroft’s brow furrowed slightly as he frowned at Sherlock, his thin lips pressing together for a moment. “It _has_ changed things. I will need to proceed carefully, though. The woman you know as ‘Mary’ is dangerous and unpredictable.”

“Yes, thank you, Mycroft; I never could’ve figured that out on my own.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed slightly, holding Sherlock’s for a long moment before ticking down to Sherlock’s chest in what seemed almost an unwilling glance. The wound Mary had inflicted to Sherlock was hidden behind his shirt, but he and Mycroft were both acutely aware that it was there and that it almost certainly would _not_ be there had Mycroft warned Sherlock from the beginning.

“Well.” Mycroft pressed his lips into the fake smile he frequently wore when hoping to move on from a troublesome topic of conversation, one that pressed his lips into a thin line and did not touch his eyes at all. He pushed himself up from John’s armchair, reaching out to grab his umbrella from where it as propped. “I will certainly be in touch, if the situation changes –”

“I won’t allow her to stay, Mycroft. She is a danger to John. She’s not a risk I’m willing to leave wandering the streets of London. Furthermore, she is tangled with Magnussen through her past misdeeds, meaning that I cannot allow him to remain at large, either.”

Mycroft’s false smile melted instantly into a grimace at his brother’s words, his hand tightening on the handle of his umbrella until Sherlock could see his knuckles blanching. “We discussed this some months back, Sherlock; Magnussen is –”

“Under your protection. Yes, I did hear you. Repetition will not change what needs to be done, Mycroft.” Sherlock stopped, pressing his own lips into a thin line as he considered whether he should move forward with his thought or not. After a moment, he took a sharp breath and met Mycroft’s eyes, hiding nothing. He could see the shock reverberate through Mycroft as he took in the open expression on his younger brother’s face. “I will do whatever I must to protect John in this situation.”

Mycroft’s mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. In their frequently combative years together, Sherlock had only rarely been able to stun his older brother into silence. Seeing Mycroft now standing before him, slack-jawed, looking for all the world like a landed fish made Sherlock confident that Mycroft understood how important this was to Sherlock.

Finally, Mycroft closed his mouth, giving his head a minute shake as he stared at Sherlock. When he spoke, his tone was mournful. “Emotional attachment, Sherlock. It’s –”

“I know your opinions on it, Mycroft. I even rather thought I shared them, once upon a time. But.” Sherlock spread his arms wide for a moment before clasping his hands together once more over his stomach, meeting Mycroft’s stunned expression with his own, aware that he was asking much from his brother.

“Yes. Well.” Mycroft tapped the cap of his umbrella twice on the red patterned rug beneath his feet, still apparently floundering for the correct words to say to his brother. Sherlock gave a tiny shake of his head, fighting off a smirk as he watched Mycroft struggling.

“In regards to Magnussen –”

“That,” Mycroft said quickly, cutting Sherlock off before the name had fully left his lips, “is not a topic that I can discuss. I simply _cannot._ ”

Sherlock began to argue, but he caught the flicker of Mycroft’s eyes as they moved from Sherlock’s face to a spot somewhere above and behind his head. It did not take much to calculate that his brother’s eyes were locked onto something in the bookshelves just beyond Sherlock’s chair, and Sherlock went very still. There had been cameras planted in 221B before; he had found them himself. Frequently, they were planted under Mycroft’s orders, but Mycroft would hardly hesitate to speak freely in front of cameras the recordings of which he, himself, had access to. That meant that someone else was spying on the goings on of 221B, and Mycroft knew about them.

“I…understand. This is neither the time nor the _place_.” Sherlock saw the tiniest, almost imperceptible inclination of Mycroft’s head at his words and knew he had correctly interpreted what Mycroft was trying to tell him. The flat was under observation and it was not by Mycroft’s orders. Interesting.

“I must get back to the office; international politics so rarely allow one time to have a _chat_ with family.” Mycroft walked briskly across the sitting room before pausing at the door to turn back, catching Sherlock’s eyes. “Be careful, brother mine. You are wading into deep waters.”

And then he was gone, pulling the sitting room door shut behind him with a final-sounding click.

It took everything in Sherlock to keep himself from leaping to his feet and tearing volumes from the bookshelf behind his chair. He could not implicate Mycroft. Should he discover the cameras, he had to make it looks as if he’d stumbled across them quite by accident. Therefore, he would need to wait a day or two to avoid raising suspicions in whomever might be watching the goings-on in 221B.

Sherlock steepled his fingers beneath his chin and settled back comfortably into his armchair. With Mycroft gone, he needed to focus on what he could do to remove “Mary” from John’s life. Mycroft had made it clear that he could do nothing overt despite his position in the British government, so it would be up to Sherlock to take the major steps and hope Mycroft would be able to mop up behind him.

A moment later, he heard a soft tap at the sitting room door and Mrs. Hudson’s soft, “ooo hoo.”

“Did you forget something, Mycroft?” Sherlock said, not bothering to open his eyes.

“It’s not Mycroft, dear; he’s been gone for at least half an hour. It’s a client.” Mrs. Hudson’s voice was gently scolding and she held the door open to allow the person in question to enter. Sherlock felt annoyance bubbling up in him as he turned to look over at Mrs. Hudson, his mouth open to remind her that he was not presently interested in taking clients, but the words died on his lips as he took in the disheveled creature stepping timidly around Mrs. Hudson in the sitting room doorway.

She could not have been more than twenty-five years old and her face was red and splotchy from a recent bout of tears. Her hands were shaking like someone with an alcohol addiction, but there were no other tells – either obvious or subtle – of alcoholism. Her pupils were blown large like someone riding a drug high, but her steps were steady and her eyes focused on Sherlock with no cloudiness or wandering of her gaze. There was a slight indentation on her ring finger, the skin in the indentation lighter than the skin surrounding it, and Sherlock felt a scowl twisting his lips as he drew his gaze from her in dismissal. She was pretty enough, but obviously her spouse had not thought so.

“I am not currently taking clients, and even if I were, broken marriages are not my specialty. I suggest you seek a lawyer.”

“My marriage isn’t broken, Mr. Holmes,” the woman said, her voice firm and unwavering despite the obvious evidence of recent emotional upset. “In fact, I left my husband at our home not ten minutes ago to come here.”

Sherlock’s scowl deepened, eyes dashing over her once more. Her clothes were clean and no more than six months old, so she was still keeping up with her appearance rather than mourning the loss of a spouse. Her hair was coifed and recently washed with a middle-of-the-line shampoo only available at specialty shops but which would not tax anyone’s finances overly much, so she was not trying to pinch pennies in preparation for starting a life on her own or spending freely to revenge her husband’s cheating ways. She had none of the typical tells of a wife in a broken marriage, beyond the missing wedding band and the blotchiness from recent tears.

“You are missing your wedding band; was it stolen or lost?”

“Please, Mr. Holmes, my wedding band is in my pocketbook. The issue isn’t my marriage. My marriage is doing fine. Or, rather, the relationship is fine. The issue is that the man at my house is not the man I married. He’s been replaced by a duplicate, and no matter how much I love him, I cannot stay with him when my hand is pledged legally to another man. Please, Mr. Holmes, you have to help me find my real husband.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock was taken aback. After a brief moment of silence, he stood from his armchair to retrieve one of the sturdy wooden chairs from the sitting room table and place it near his armchair, the two chairs at right angles to one another. He adjusted his chair slightly so he could more directly view the woman as she took a seat in the newly placed chair.

“Tell me everything. Leave nothing out, Mrs…?”

“Downs. Lila Downs.” Mrs. Downs settled herself hesitantly into the chair, her eyes downcast as if she of meeting Sherlock’s gaze directly. She hunched in on herself a little once she was seated as if she weren’t comfortable in her skin, crossing her ankles primly as she paused to gather her thoughts. Finally, she met Sherlock’s eyes for a moment before dropping her gaze once more into her lap. When she spoke, the words were hesitant and soft and Sherlock had to strain to hear her, even in the relative silence of the sitting room. It seemed whatever passion she had been able to muster with her initial plea to get Sherlock to listen had been used up in those first few moments; what remained was a hunched, resigned creature. “It started one month ago. My husband and I have been married for almost three years now, and I came home from doing the shopping last month and realized that the man making tea in the kitchen wasn’t my husband. He looks roughly like him – same hair color and eye color – but he _isn’t_ him. Somehow, Marcus has been replaced by someone else, even though this imposter insists that he _is_ my Marcus.” The woman’s hands clenched in her lap, knuckles going white with the force of her distress. “It’s made worse by everyone else playing along with him. Our friends still call him ‘Marcus,’ even though I can see it isn’t him. I don’t know if they’re all playing a really long game to see if they can make me question my sanity, or…I don’t know. But it seems like I’m the only one who’s willing to admit that this stranger isn’t my husband.”

Mrs. Downs shifted, uncrossing her ankles and then recrossing them, hands smoothing over her neatly pressed trousers as if rubbing away an invisible wrinkle. “It would be easier for me to be angry at what was happening if this stranger wasn’t so pleasant. He insists that he is who he says he is, but he has been absolutely darling to me this last month…other than the lying about his identity any time I try to broach the subject. He helps around the house and he doesn’t pressure me to agree with his delusion. He watches the shows my husband and I like on the telly and chats with me when I’m feeling sad or upset. But, Mr. Holmes, I _need_ my husband back. He’s my _husband_ , no matter how kind this stranger is, and I’m worried about him. I don’t know where he could be or what might be happening to him while I’m sat watching Downton Abbey with the imposter.”

“You said earlier that you loved this new man?”

Mrs. Downs blushed, lowering her eyes from Sherlock’s. “He…this strange man, he’s very pleasant. If he weren’t lying to me, I think it would be very easy to fall in love with him. He reminds me very much of my Marcus…I’m sure that’s why he was chosen to take my husband’s place.”

Sherlock shifted in his armchair. He needed to ask Mrs. Downs some questions, but she looked likely to dissolve into tears or wilt into the chair if he pressed her too strongly. He had a strong suspicion as to what the problem might be, but he didn’t want to drive her away before he was able to lead her to her answer. If he were right, this would be the perfect way to begin enacting the plan he’d started roughing together in his mind for dealing with Mary. But he had to confirm his suspicions as to Mrs. Downs’ problem before he ran off half-cocked and created a mess.

“Mrs. Downs, you said you realized your husband wasn’t your husband last month. Was there anything out of the ordinary that happened in your life preceding that?”

“Actually, there was! My husband and I were in an accident on the motorway. It was a fairly bad one; he broke his wrist and I got a rather bad concussion. Thankfully, we didn’t have to spend more than one night in hospital, but it was a terrifying thing to go through.” Mrs. Downs shifted forward slightly on her chair, glancing up to meet Sherlock’s eyes for one brief moment. “That’s another reason I know this man must be an imposter; he has a cast on his wrist, like my husband did, but he is using that hand much too well for it to’ve been broken five weeks ago.”

Sherlock leaned back in his chair, satisfaction bringing a faint smile to his face. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet, Mrs. Downs, if you’re willing. I believe he’ll be able to help you.”

 

\- - - - -

 

Mary’s expression when she opened the front door to the Watson’s home was almost comical. The pleasant smile on her face froze, her eyebrows drawing down slightly in confusion as she glanced between Sherlock and Mrs. Downs for a moment.

John appeared behind her a moment later, his own face brightening as he saw Sherlock. “Sherlock! What’re you doing...oh, who’s this?”

“This is Mrs. Downs. She’s a client.”

“You’ve brought a client here?” Mary glanced at the woman, her eyes narrowing slightly before ticking back to Sherlock. “Why?”

“For Dr. Watson to consult.” Sherlock didn’t bother hiding his satisfied smile.

“In case you weren’t aware, Dr. Watson isn’t currently seeing patients.” Mary’s hand tightened on the door frame where she was holding on, blocking Sherlock and Mrs. Downs from entering the house. “He’s between jobs.”

“I need his expertise.” Sherlock frowned slightly. Was ‘Mary’ really going to press the issue?

“Mary, come on…it’s not that big of a deal.” John glanced up, meeting Sherlock’s eyes with a wry expression. “Besides, how often do I get to hear Sherlock admitting he can’t solve a problem and needs my help?”

Sherlock bit back his desire to point out that he’d already solved the case and only needed John to confirm it for him. With Mary standing between the two of them like a bristling guard dog, giving every indication that she was planning to swing the door shut in his face, Sherlock could hold his tongue and allow himself to come across as stumped.

Mary frowned briefly before looking past Sherlock to where Mrs. Downs stood, the meek woman clenching her hands just below her waist. When Mrs. Downs caught Mary looking at her, she actually fell back a step on the front walk.

“All right. But we were planning to leave in just a few minutes for dinner. Make it quick.” Mary stepped out of the doorway, turning and leaving the room without a backwards glanced. Sherlock stepped through and into the sitting room as John moved towards Mrs. Downs, holding his hand towards her as he eased her into the house, catching her gently behind one arm to lead her in. John always managed to calm the frightened clients, bringing them comfort even in the face of their misery. Sherlock had never bothered mastering the art, and it was something he missed keenly when John wasn’t there with him to see clients. The reminder of how their lives had changed in the last year made Sherlock’s stomach roil.

He glanced around the room quickly, verifying that he was temporarily alone. John was still in the entryway with Mrs. Downs and Mary was nowhere to be seen, although he suspected she was lurking just out of sight. Still, no one was watching him at that moment. He reached into his Belstaff overcoat pocket, drawing out a mobile phone which he palmed in his hand, glad for the width of his hand and length of his fingers at that moment.

The mobile was hardly a top-of-the-line model, but he didn’t need it to be. When he’d contacted Mycroft earlier that afternoon and asked him to come, he’d also asked his brother to bring an untraceable mobile for Sherlock to use. Mycroft hadn’t argued or even asked why Sherlock needed it; undoubtedly, he’d been able to make the connection when Sherlock had mentioned he needed to speak in person to his brother about “Mary.”

 Sherlock stepped across the room towards the sofa he strongly suspected John would sit on. He hesitated a moment as the nausea he’d felt earlier came back, this time sweeping through his entire body, making his head swim briefly. When had he last eaten? That morning? He definitely hadn’t had lunch or tea, and the sun was setting now. He’d need to get something on his way back to the flat or risk being taken for a drunk when he stumbled into a building or signpost. He was still healing from his prolonged unconsciousness in hospital, much thinner than he’d been in many years. He didn’t handle missing meals as well as he had done three years ago.

And suddenly, his head swam as the sofa before him seemed to waver.

_Mary and John sat on the couch together, smiling with a sort of exhausted fondness, an infant cradled in Mary’s arms as she looked up and met Sherlock’s eyes, her own expression soft and open and not at all like the Mary he had known ever since stepping in Magnussen’s office several months back._

The moment passed as quickly as it had come, leaving his head still swimming. He allowed his brief dizziness to translate into a stumble and he caught himself on the sofa, using the moment to lean down and quickly stuff the palmed mobile between the cushions. He was up and moving across the room a second later, eyes on John as the shorter man crossed the sitting room with one hand resting lightly behind Mrs. Downs’ elbow, steering her.

“So, Mrs…?”

“Downs.”

“Mrs. Downs. Why did you need Sherlock Holmes?” John settled onto the couch, gesturing towards a nearby armchair. Mrs. Downs moved towards it cautiously, sitting literally on the edge of her seat as if she might leap to her feet and flee at any moment. She hesitated a moment, glancing over at Sherlock were he stood near the wall, his arms wrapped around himself and the collar of his coat flipped up to hide how weak her felt at the moment. He knew the low blood sugar wouldn’t pass on its own, but he could hide it until he felt able to pretend to be feeling better than he actually did.

When it became obvious that Sherlock wasn’t going to speak, Mrs. Downs rubbed her palms on her trousers and recounted her story to John. He listened without speaking, waiting patiently each time she paused in the telling of her story. When she finished, John looked over to meet Sherlock’s eyes, his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Mrs. Downs, have you ever been under the care of a psychiatrist?”

“Do you think I’m crazy?” Mrs. Downs’ voice shook as she asked the question, her eyes filling with tears.

“No, of course not. Sherlock brought you here for my medical opinion, but I need to ask a few clarifying questions before I can give it.” John’s voice was gentle and soothing and Sherlock hummed softly to himself in appreciation for John’s bedside manner.

Mrs. Downs reached up with a shaking hand to wipe away the tears hanging in the edges of her eyes, her hands shaking faintly. “I’ve never seen a psychiatrist.”

“Do you suffer from migraines?”

“Not really, no. I have headaches, of course, and sometimes have really bad ones…but I’ve never been diagnosed with migraines, and I don’t have bad headaches often. Maybe once every six months or so?”

“You’re not diabetic?”

“Of course not!” Mrs. Downs glanced over at Sherlock again, but he said nothing and did not move, remaining fixed against the wall.

“No thyroid issues?”

“Why are you asking me all these questions? I don’t have any health problems! I’ve practically never even had any bad illnesses!” Mrs. Downs was crying openly now, her voice shaking as she spoke. On anyone else, Sherlock thought, the impassioned speech would’ve been delivered in a shout. Mrs. Downs, however, did it as meekly as she’d done everything else so far, the words spoken barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Downs.” John leaned to one side, plucking a tissue from a box on an end table beside the sofa. He leaned back towards Mrs. Downs, tissue extended. She plucked it from him and blew her nose softly, dabbing at her cheeks and eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you feel attacked.”

“She was in a road accident five weeks ago.” Sherlock stepped away from the wall but did not move towards John or Mrs. Downs. Instead, he crossed the room towards the front door, opening it briefly to glance into the gathering darkness. He saw the movement of ‘Mary’ trying to be unseen where she stood just around the corner in the next room, but he could see the toe of one runner sticking just beyond the edge of the wall when he turned back from the front door. She was definitely listening in. He pulled his mobile from one pocket, tapping a message out on the screen as he moved back across the Watson’s sitting room.

“Did you have a head injury during that accident?” John asked, understanding passing over his face.

“Yes, I did. How did you know that?”

“Mrs. Downs, you have something known as Capgras delusion,” Sherlock said, still tapping away at his mobile as he spoke, his eyes lowered to focus on the screen. “It causes you to believe that those you know quite well are actually imposters. It can be caused by the illnesses Dr. Watson was questioning you about, but it can also be brought on by an injury to the brain. I’ve texted a cab service and they’ll be here momentarily. I’ll go with you to hospital and stay with you while they examine you. If you are comfortable with it, I will call your husband to meet us there. However, if you’d prefer, we can wait until you’ve spoken with a doctor.”

“I…I’m sick?” Mrs. Downs’ voice sounded smaller than ever and Sherlock glanced up as he finished his texts, watching John give a little jump the mobile Sherlock had shoved between two cushions on the sofa buzzed with an incoming text. He plunged his hand between the cushions, drawing it out and staring at it blankly for a moment, obviously wondering where an unfamiliar mobile could’ve come from. After a second, he looked up, his eyes meeting Sherlock’s across the room. Sherlock gave a tiny nod before pressing his lips together, hoping John would understand that now wasn’t the best time. John glanced at Mrs. Downs and then shoved the unfamiliar mobile into his pocket.

Sherlock spoke, filling the silence. “It makes more sense the reality you presented to me earlier: that an imposter has moved into your house, one who looks similar to your husband and whom all your friends are insisting _is_ your husband despite your own insistence that it is not.”

Mrs. Downs’ hands were trembling, although her tears had stopped. “But…but I’d know if he were my husband, wouldn’t I?”

“I believe that there is a part of you which feels certain that he _is_ your husband, hence your continued affection for him. I believe that therapy and antipsychotics will help you immensely, but first you have to see a doctor who can diagnose you.” Outside, a cab pulled up to the kerb in front of the Watson’s house and beeped its horn once. Almost as if it were a signal, Mary came back into the sitting room, standing near Sherlock as she glanced around.

“Are you leaving? Perfect timing, actually. John?”

John rose from the sofa, hesitating a moment as he glanced between Mary and Sherlock. “You don’t need me?”

“Of course not, John. Fairly straightforward. I just needed your confirmation of what I suspected already.” Sherlock lifted his own mobile, jiggling it beside his thigh where it would be hidden from Mary on his other side. He continued to wiggle it until John glanced at it, eyebrows drawing down in confusion. He glanced up at Sherlock’s face and Sherlock raised his own eyebrows for a moment, glancing down towards John’s trouser pocket where the mobile John had fished from the sofa earlier was evident from the lump it made in the fabric. “Mrs. Downs and I will head to hospital and get her the help she needs. Thank you for your time tonight.”

Mrs. Downs rose from her chair, murmuring a soft, puzzled thank you to John as he moved to join Sherlock at the front door. Mary opened it for them, holding it wide while they passed. It shut behind them as soon as they stepped through and Sherlock thumbed his mobile’s screen on, verifying that his text had been marked as received.

It was the words “reply to this and then delete the conversation.” He stared down at the words for a moment while Mrs. Downs hesitated uncertainly on the stoop next to him. He tucked his mobile back into his pocket as he approached the cab, waiting on tenterhooks until he felt the mobile buzzing with an incoming reply from John.

Sherlock and Mrs. Downs had climbed into the backseat of the taxi cab and he had given the address of the closest hospital before Sherlock finally removed his mobile from his pocket once more. There was one unread message and Sherlock opened it, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

_Why on earth is there a mobile in my sofa?_

Sherlock’s fingers flew as he texted back.

_Delete this conversation once you’ve read it. I will be texting this mobile periodically. Do not keep the texts once you’ve read them. Do not check this phone when Mary is in the room. If you cannot be sure whether she will see you or not and more than twenty minutes have passed since you received my newest text on this mobile, text me the message “Any new clients?” from your primary mobile. I will text this mobile with more instructions later. Delete this conversation._

Sherlock turned the screen off, stuffing his mobile phone back into his Belstaff pocket. The faint smile lingered on his face as he stared out the cab window at the passing scenery. He had successfully set up a way to communicate with John without Mary knowing they were speaking. That was one major thing he could mark off of his to-do list. After a moment of watching the world slide by outside the cab, he cleared his throat, glancing around to the still-softly-sniffling Mrs. Downs.

“Would you mind terribly if we stopped through somewhere to grab some chips on our way?”

She stared at him blankly, her eyes wide and her brow faintly furrowed. Did silence indicate agreement?

Sherlock leaned forward, speaking to the cabbie and gesturing out the front windscreen. “Do you mind pulling over up here? I just need to run in for a moment…”

“It’s going on the meter, mate,” the cabbie said, not even glancing back at him.

“That’s fine.” Sherlock settled back. There. Now he could cross two things off his to-do list for the evening.


	6. Chapter 6

_Delete upon receipt. 2pm tomorrow, Battersea Power Station in the spot where you met Irene Adler._

_Yes._

 Sherlock paced, impatience dragging him forward and back as he waited for John to arrive. What if Mary stopped him leaving? She’d done so before, insisting that she felt unwell and needed him to stay home with her only to have a miraculous recovery after a quarter of an hour of sitting with John and watching telly.

 Or, worse, what if she agreed to him leaving but followed him? Or worse, what if she’d intercepted the text message and it would be she and not John who arrived?

 Two weeks of furtive texts had proven Sherlock and John to be very lucky, but Sherlock knew that at some point their luck would inevitably run out. Sherlock knew that they were pushing the limits of how long they could carry on this game of pretending to be on Mary's side, pretending to only see each other when Mary chose to visit 221B to listen to Sherlock's ideas for dealing with Magnussen, all of which she'd shot down - not that Sherlock blamed her; they had all been terrible ideas, barely better than 'paint a fake train tunnel against a mountainside and hope Magnussen runs into it.' Of course, he hadn't put much effort into the plans for Magnussen. His energies were focused on the danger of "Mary."

 When Sherlock had returned from the years he'd been absent from London and John, thinking he'd finished making the world safe for them, he'd had the foolish hope that perhaps he and John would finally, _finally_ be able to voice what had been so long unspoken between them, buried under the weight of John’s serial dating of women whose faces blended together in his memory and the distance created between them by the words "married to my work." Sherlock had let himself believe that he could stop pretending that John was nothing more than his only friend, and admit that John was his everything. There had been moments throughout their two years together where Sherlock had thought that maybe John might feel as he did, might crave more than the shared space of 221B and the comfortable familiarity of being flatmates... but all of that had blown away like dandelion fluff in the spring when he'd come back to London and found John with Mary on his arm.

 And then Mary had proven herself to be something other than how she presented herself, and Sherlock had allowed himself to begin to hope once more that maybe, in time...

 And so he paced, craving time with John with the familiar intensity of the rush of drugs through his veins.

 He heard the door downstairs clanking open, the squeal of rusting hinges echoing in the open space of the station. He stilled himself, letting no hint of the tension and restlessness inside of him to show on the surface. Whether it was John or 'Mary' who came up the stairs to meet him, he did not want to give away how he felt. 

 The heavy footsteps coming up the metal stairs further inside the power station were familiar, the same tread he'd listed to for years when he'd shared the rooms at 221B. The faint smile that ticked up one side of his mouth was the only indication he gave of how satisfied he felt at John's appearance.

 "Not the friendliest place to meet, but it is out of the way and unexpected, I'll give you that." John's voice echoed around the room, a chorus of Johns surrounding Sherlock in the cool grey light that filtered through the high windows across the way.

 "Hello, John."

 "You've been taking lessons from Mycroft." John rubbed his hands together briskly as his steps slowed and stopped just in front of Sherlock. "Although summons through text message are infinitely preferable to Anthea."

 “What excuse did you give your wife?” Sherlock needed to know how brief this rendezvous would be in order to proceed. No sense beginning a long explanation if John would be swanning away in the next ten minutes.

“Job interview.” John grinned slightly, casting a glance up at Sherlock’s face before breaking their connected gazes to draw the burner phone Sherlock had smuggled to him from his trouser pocket. “I think she might be getting suspicious, though. She said a couple days back that she thought I’d bought a new phone and then realized it was just my old one and blamed her mistake on lack of sleep due to pregnancy nausea.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock frowned slightly. Mary’s suspicion was going to cause a problem for them. It was safer to remove the suspicious activity than endanger them both. “We will need to stop meeting like this, then.”

He didn’t miss the droop of John’s shoulders, although it was very brief. Almost before Sherlock had registered the disappointment in the other man’s stance, John was straightening up into almost a parade rest, his hands tucked behind his back as he fought to cover his unhappiness.

“Probably right. Too risky.”

“John, she killed me. I won’t risk that happening to you just because she fears her control over you is slipping.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sherlock wished intensely he could take them back. The pain that widened John’s eyes and let his mouth drop open for a second hit Sherlock in his gut like a physical punch. He hadn’t meant to be quite so blunt, despite the fact that he’d had months to get used to the idea of “Mary” having killed him. John, obviously, was still struggling with it.

“It shouldn’t matter,” Sherlock said, the words rushed. “Giving up these secretive meetings shouldn’t matter for long. I strongly believe that she is growing tired of waiting for us to make a move and help her secure her files.”

“You never have given me a solid plan for getting them back, Sherlock.”

“Because I haven’t been trying,” Sherlock admitted, smirking slightly at the admission and the surprise on John’s face. “I knew if I just held off long enough, she’d take matters into her own hands. Based upon several recent cash purchases she’s made in secret, it’s obvious that she’s planning to make a move quite soon.”

“How do you -?”

“Mycroft. He’s been quietly tracking her movements, at my request.” Sherlock turned, pacing several steps away from John, trying to work through some of the nervous energy tingling through him. “She is likely planning to go through with the same plan she had in place initially, the one we walked in on and spoiled. She doesn’t seem to have a glut of imagination and will stick with the easiest option.”

“So, what, she’ll be trying to… threaten Magnussen? Possibly shoot him?”

“’The King is dead; long live the King,’” Sherlock murmured in an undertone. At John’s look, he sighed in frustration. “He’s hardly worth saving, John. Magnussen has made it his business to blackmail people and publish their secrets if they can’t or won’t give him what he wants. Allowing Mary to remove him from play won’t hurt anyone and will help a great many people. All we need do it turn the other way while she does it.”

“And have her arrested her afterwards? Not even attempt to catch her in the act and maybe prevent a murder?”

“She’s already proven capable of sneaking around behind our backs; there’s no way we can predict when she’ll make her move. And it’s unlikely she’ll be as foolish as to leave clues for the police to track the assassination to her afterwards. Short of staking out Appledore for the next month, there’s not much we can do to ensure we are there when the murder takes place.”

John frowned harder, his brows drawing low over his eyes. “I realize what Magnussen is. I’m not even fooled by what Mary pretends to be, not anymore… but I’m not comfortable with this.”

Sherlock threw his hands up theatrically, spinning on his heel to pace away from John, his heavy steps echoing faintly in the wide-open spaces of the Battersea Power Station. “Then what do you suggest, John? Should we try to take her into custody now based on nothing more than my say-so that she shot me and the possibility that Magnussen will back up our story with whatever files related to her past he has stored away?”

John did not stop frowning, cutting his eyes briefly over to meet Sherlock’s own frustrated gaze before looking down at the toes of his shoes again. Sherlock sighed silently, before softening his voice

“Do you acknowledge that Magnussen is not worth mourning?”

John gave a quick, cheerless smile, the edges sharp enough for Sherlock to cut himself on. “He’s a horrible person, but who are we to say he deserves to be killed?”

“We aren’t doing the killing, John. And he is fully aware that ‘Mary’ is actively hunting him. What more can we do?”

“So we just let her kill him?”

“It eliminates one problem: Magnussen and the files he may or may not have on Mary.” Sherlock paused for a moment before adding, “And we have one advantage that will allow us the chance to catch her in the act.”

“I thought you just said –“

“That short of staking Appledore out for the next month, we had no way of knowing when she’d make her move.”

“Exactly.” John sounded both baffled and frustrated, and Sherlock smiled again, the briefest lift at the corners of his mouth.

“Do you remember Mrs. Downs?”

John hesitated, blinking twice as he processed the sudden left turn the conversation had made. “The… the woman you brought by a few weeks back with, uh…”

 “Capgras delusion. She didn’t believe her husband was her husband.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“Her husband, Lawrence Downs, lost his position with a personal security firm when they were in their automobile accident almost three months back. With the end of the necessity of a plaster to hold the bone together, he started applying for new positions. He was hired as part of a rotating night security team in a new position just last week.” Sherlock didn’t fight the brilliant smile he felt spreading across his face. John still looked puzzled, but slowly, understanding was dawning on his face. Sherlock prompted, “A new position…”

“At Appledore,” John finished, giving his head a little shake as he began to smile, too. “That’s a stroke of luck.”

“Oh, John… ‘luck’ has nothing to do with it. Mr. Downs raised concerns over his wife with a friend and former coworker. His prior position, before he was sacked for being unable to work for several months, had a contract with a building connected to the government.”

“The government…” John shook his head. “Mycroft?”

“He advised Mr. Downs’ friend to recommend to Mr. Downs his little brother, who was excellent at solving mysteries. It would appeal to a woman who believed her husband had been replaced with an imposter. Mycroft was right, much as it pains me to admit it.”

“Did Mycroft have anything to do with Mr. Downs’ new position at Appledore?” John asked, a knowing tone in his voice and a quirk in one eyebrow.

Sherlock felt his lips pinch into a moue of distaste and shook his head. “Mycroft swears he didn’t, but somehow I doubt his veracity.”

John snorted a soft laugh before rubbing a hand lightly over one cheek, looking thoughtful. “So, Mr. Downs is perfectly situated to help us out. And he’s agreed to contact you?”

“Should Magnussen turn up dead, he’ll let us know immediately. And, I’ve taken the precaution of installing a tracking device in Mary’s mobile, so we’ll know where she is immediately after. Mycroft will be able to dispatch the troops instantly to apprehend her.”

“When did you have time to put a tracking device in Mary’s mobile?” John demanded, striding across the small space of floor between them to stare at Sherlock with equal parts admiration and amazement.

“Six days ago when you both stopped at the flat to discuss potential plans for dealing with Magnussen. I waited until she was making tea and popped it under her battery. It only took a moment, and I doubt she’s discovered it; she hasn’t removed it, anyway. And all it does is broadcast her signal to me. I can’t listen in on conversations or log keystrokes. It’s quite small and it’s likely she’ll overlook it even if she opens the battery compartment.”

Sherlock did not bother telling John that the idea for bugging Mary’s electronic device had come to him during one of the drug-induced nightmare flashbacks. He knew it distressed John when he talked about the lingering effects of whatever drugs had been given to him over the course of several months while he’d been in a coma.

“That’s…that’s absolutely brilliant. It minimizes the risk to us and, if she’s caught right after doing something illegal, will guarantee a long prison sentence.”

“I haven’t been idle, John.” Sherlock shrugged his shoulders lightly. “I _did_ say that I would be working on the problems Mary had presented. I just didn’t specify that my preferred solution would be one of her imprisoned rather than freed from Magnussen’s leash.”

John’s whole face was shining. He looked as if he’d swallowed the sun. He stared up at Sherlock, not hiding his admiration at all. Sherlock felt his heartbeat speeding as he took in John’s expression, the warmth and softness in the other man’s gaze filling his chest with renewed awareness of the extent of his feelings for John.

Now would be a perfect moment to let John have some small clue as to how he felt. There was no need to proclaim it openly; he could present it subtly, leave it like a seed to grow in John’s mind. After all, there was every possibility that “Mary” would be removed as an obstacle sometime in the next month. Sherlock felt sure that a month would be more than enough time for John to come to grips with the idea of a Sherlock Holmes that loved him.

“John, I –“

The sound of John’s mobile phone ringing cut through his words, the annoying tune jingling over everything and echoing maddeningly off the cement, concrete, and steel of the Battersea Power Station. John grimaced faintly, digging into his trouser pocket to withdraw the phone. He glanced at the screen and murmured, “It’s Mary” before turning his back to Sherlock and raising the phone to his ear, keeping his voice down.

“Hey. Uh, yeah, actually, I was just about to step out and catch a cab.” He paused, listening, then cleared his throat. “Uh…I think it went well. I suppose we’ll see, yeah? They said they’d ring in the next week if they wanted a second interview.”

Sherlock shoved his hands into the pockets of his Belstaff overcoat, frowning heavily. As always, “Mary” was in the way.

“Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit. Right. Bye.” John disconnected and turned to look back at Sherlock. “Sorry about that. It does me no good to ignore her, though; she just keeps ringing me until I finally answer. And the longer it takes, the more suspicious she gets. I accidentally left the ringer off one afternoon when I ran to Tesco and I felt like I’d come back to the Spanish Inquisition afterwards. She made me repeat my story six times to ‘check for inconsistencies’ before she finally left off.” John sighed softly, turning the mobile over and over in his hand, staring down at it with a sad expression. “She swings between being fairly pleasant and being a suspicious jail keeper. I have to admit, I’m getting more than a little tired of it. If there wasn’t a risk of one of us taking a bullet to the head, I’d just walk away.” John glanced up, a faint smile lifting the corner of one mouth. “And I think that we’ve already had more than enough bullet wounds between the two of us.”

Sherlock forced a smile, trying to find the earlier companionable feeling of warmth and happiness that had flowed between them, but he couldn’t seem to summon it up. John was staring back down at his mobile again, is expression mournful. Sherlock could hardly ask for a worse time to confess his feelings.

“I’ll contact you when Mr. Downs lets me know that something’s happened, then.” Sherlock said the words dismissively, drawing his own mobile from inside his overcoat and pretending to thumb in a message, instead typing nonsense characters into a search bar while John watched him. Although he could only see John peripherally, he didn’t miss the way John’s already mournful expression changed slightly into one of loss at Sherlock’s words. Once again, though, John resumed a practiced stance before Sherlock could get a proper look at him.

“Right. Okay. I’ll see you then.”

Sherlock raised his phone, pretending to stare at the screen as he watched John pace away, leaving him alone within the cold grey walls of the Battersea Power Station.

 


End file.
